New ISIS Document Reveals Fixed Prices For Female Slaves

A new document, purported to be released by the Islamic State, lays out a fixed pricing system for selling women and children abducted by the group.

It seems the group, often referred to as ISIS or ISIL, has been feeling the pinch as of late. The pricing structure in the document seeks to bolster prices in a failing market.

“The market to sell women and spoils of war has been experiencing a significant decrease, which has adversely affected ISIS revenue and financing of the Mujahideen,” the document declares, according to a translation by IraqiNews.com.

The notice then lays out the prices for Christian and Yazidi women. The younger the woman, the higher the price. For instance, the price of a woman between 40 and 50 years old is 50,000 dinars or about $43. A girl between 10 and 20 years old fetches a price of 150,000 dinars or $129. Girls under 10 carry an imposed price of $172.

Yazidis are members of a religious sect who live in northern Iraq. They practice an ancient religion with ties to Zoroastrianism. Because of this they have been deemed heretics by ISIS and have become one of the militant Islamic group’s targets.

The document declares that no one in the country is allowed to buy more than three women, but exceptions are made for foreigners from Turkey and Syria. Those caught violating the price controls will be executed, the document declares.

That ISIS is trading in female captives should come as no surprise.

CNN ran a story over the weekend about the plight of women taken captive by the group.

Nazand Begikhani, an adviser on gender to the Kurdistan Regional Government, said in an interview for that story that the women in the northern regions of Iraq are “being treated like cattle.”

“They have been subjected to physical and sexual violence, including systematic rape and sex slavery. They've been exposed in markets in Mosul and in Raqqa, Syria, carrying price tags,” she said.

On Monday video surfaced of ISIS fighters bartering over women and young girls in a slave market. A report from the Daily Mail regarding the video confirms what Begikhani claimed.

At one point in the video a man examines a 15-year-old and declares, “If she doesn't have teeth, why would I want her?”